CA Medical Marijuana “Hijacked By Criminals?”
Joe | Sep 01, 2010 | Comments 8
The California medical marijuana industry is being infested with a criminal element according to Los Angeles Sheriff Lee Baca. This pronouncement stems in part from a recent triple homicide in West Hollywood.
He said the criminal element has flooded the business because of the outrageous profits to be made. “There are predators armed and seeking easy dollars in sales of marijuana,” Baca said.
Baca said his detectives have found marijuana collectives buying from cartel sources and selling to people in large amounts. In the triple slaying case, two of the dead men did business with at least four dispensaries.
Sheriff Baca is against Proposition 19 – the ballot measure to legalize cannabis possession for adults. Yet it is continued marijuana prohibition in CA and around the country that keeps marijuana prices high. When prices stay high, so do profits. So to fight the criminals now flooding the business, Sheriff Baca wants to keep their profits healthy. I’m not a sheriff, but that seems like a policy to me to be doomed to failure.
I’m sure the sheriff thinks that if they just eradicate more plants and make more busts, they can beat the criminals. But the more supply is cut, the more prices go up; and profits go up with them, enticing even more criminals to flood the business. I hate to sound condescending, but this is simple economics.
The only way to take the criminal element out of anything is to reduce profit margins. And the only way to do that with marijuana is make sure prices fall; that will only come with legalization.
But Joe, you’re saying, aren’t cannabis prices already falling in CA? This is true, and proves the failure of prohibition. The fact is that marijuana supply continues to grow despite law enforcement efforts. This is because the “outrageous profits” the sheriff mentioned are like a beacon to every criminal and two-bit punk in and around the state. The economy sucks, why not sell weed? The unending line of people waiting to get into the business is why marijuana prohibition can never succeed.
It’s time we went a new direction, Sheriff Baca. Your way has failed.
Filed Under: Activism • Best Of The Best • Exclusive Web Content • The War On Drugs
$113 billion is spent on marijuana every year in the U.S., and because of the federal prohibition *every* dollar of it goes straight into the hands of criminals. Far from preventing people from using marijuana, the prohibition instead creates zero legal supply amid massive and unrelenting demand.
According to the ONDCP, at least sixty percent of Mexican drug cartel money comes from selling marijuana in the U.S., they protect this revenue by brutally torturing, murdering and dismembering countless innocent people.
If we can STOP people using marijuana then we need to do so NOW, but if we can’t then we need to legalize the production and sale of marijuana to adults with after-tax prices set too low for the cartels to match. One way or the other, we have to force the cartels out of the marijuana market and eliminate their highly lucrative marijuana incomes – no business can withstand the loss of sixty percent of its revenue!
To date, the cartels have amassed more than 100,000 “foot soldiers” and operate in 230 U.S. cities, and Arizona police are now conceding that parts of their state are under cartel control. The longer the cartels are allowed to exploit the prohibition the more powerful they’re going to get and the more our own personal security will be put in jeopardy.
This development in the industry is because of the shut down of the LA dispensaries. At one time there were 1100 all over LA. City shut that down to 41. Where do people go to buy their medicine now? They were forced to go to street dealers. This increase in violence is the result of the City Council crackdown and was a know result during arguments on the ordinance.
To serve and protect….our jobs.
Prohibition has never worked in any context it has ever been tried. Drugs, gambling, abortion, prostitution, alcohol… it ALWAYS produces far more harm and NEVER succeeds in its goals.
So why do governments keep promoting prohibition?
I think it is because at least 80% of human beings are certifiable morons.
What do you think?
Keep it illegal so that my prison guard brother can keep his job watching non violent, easy to control prisoners, and so that I can continue to make easy big money
Nobody wants that nasty low quality product from Mexico. If the cartels are moving high quality, it’s from stealing it from Californians. Remove the three stooges: Steve Cooley, Carmen Trutanich, and Lee Baca from power!
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Thanks for the response. The smear tactics they have been using are awful.